Mark Twain Influences

Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835 in the small village of Florida, Missouri. Although he is more familiarly known by his pen name, his parents John and Jane Clemens initially gave their sixth child the name Samuel Langhorne Clemens. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the characters of Tom’s half-brother Sid and his cousin Mary are modeled after his real-life brother Henry and sister Pamela. At the tender age of 4, Twain’s family moved to Hannibal, Missouri into a residence located along the Mississippi River. Living in this city until he was 17 years old, this era of his life may be in fact the most influential in creating the style of writing that Mark Twain possesses in many of his novels. Particularly his experiences of viewing the treatment of Native Americans and slaves had much influence on his literary style of writing.

One of the more impactful events of Mark Twain’s life was his family’s economic struggle after his father abruptly died. His father’s death directly mirrors Tom Sawyer’s father, who the readers assume is dead. Aunt Polly raises Tom Sawyer, which is another connection to Mark Twain in the aspect that he was also raised by a woman figure for a majority of his life. With Jane Clemens being the new head of the household, it was difficult to make a profitable living, especially during a time period in which women were not well-received in the work force. In order to earn money for his family, Twain stopped attending school when he was 12 years old, and instead began working as an apprentice printer at the Hannibal Courier. Mark Twain usually wrote about firsthand experiences, which is especially apparent in the novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The setting of these stories takes place in the town of St. Petersburg, which is none other than the actual existing city of Hannibal,